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Proportional representation in Islamic centers

20-03-1998

Question 361

Is proportional representation in Islam alowable or not.The situation is thus, if there are say 10 Muslim organisations(each with a differant number of members) and they all join together to form one mother organisation so that they can co-ordinate between the Islamic work between each other. Is it permissible that we catogorise the organisation according to their membership. That is if one organisation has 1-100 members they get one vote, 101-200 members they get two votes and so on, Is this permissible in Islam? I hope you can answer this thank you

Answer

Praise be to Allah.



There is no problem with this because it is a way of organizing things in order to reach the right or better opinion, by using points to represent groups according to their size or number of members. But you should know that a "one man one vote" system may be unfair if the people involved are not equal in trustworthiness, ability, knowledge and experience that are necessary for the kind of decision-making that you want to undertake. If they are equal or close enough, then "one man one vote" is fair and wise. The people of authority (ahl al-hall wa’l-’aqd) in this ummah are those who have knowledge and virtue, who are rational and wise, and who are prominent and distinguished. These, not the ignorant masses whose opinion is worthless, are the ones who select the khaleefah. May Allaah help you to do that which will please Him.

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